My Day of Court

I spent most of Sunday keeping myself busy and not thinking about the fact that Lyle would soon be waking up to attend the all-too-important court date.  Mikiyas and I attended the block party in the afternoon.  He had a blast and as I kept having to answer questions about court and repetitively telling people that "yes, sometimes court doesn't go through for the adoptive family" I became increasingly psyched out.  

Most people are of the assumption that court is easy-breezy and always goes through without a hitch.  Yes, the percentage is much higher that it does go through than that it doesn't.  However, there are times that families who have accepted their referral, attached themselves to their new child, embraced and prepared themselves in every way, have had the heartbreak of losing their child at the court session for any number of reasons.  This recently happened to friends of ours and they have constantly been on my mind since as a reminder that we don't always know the outcome.  

Mikiyas and I spent the evening enduring the pain of corn rows.  He looks amazing and oh-so-karate kid.  This kept my mind off things.  I then headed to bed early, expecting that I'd not be able to fall asleep.  Miraculously, I was out rather quickly.  I woke up about 2:20 am and was done for.  Lyle and I texted a couple of times.  At 11:47 pm he said "we will be going in soon".  I laugh now because it was at 3:03 am that the next text came saying "still waiting to get in to the see the judge".  Exactly two minutes later he says "Done court now.  I will call in a few minutes from the guest house".

I sat on pins and needles for over half an hour.  The phone rings and I hear a strong Ethiopian accent shout into the phone "Calling from Ethiopia.  Speak up!".  

We went through.  Court is successfully done.  After all the travel, money, exhaustion, five hours of waiting at the courthouse, Lyle's two minutes before the judge are complete and rewarding.  It was worth it!  Lyle is headed for lunch and then will be meeting our daughter.  Now we lift up our thanks to God.

MOWA is twenty days behind on their cases.  So we shall see what God's timing is from here.